


Perspective

by DoneInLove



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, firefam - Freeform, post 3x11, pure fluff, spoilers for 3x11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23195278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoneInLove/pseuds/DoneInLove
Summary: Albert and Eddie both looked across the park then, where Buck was still playing with Chris and Denny, and Eddie’s heart warmed as he saw him “help” Chris across the monkey-bars, even though they all knew he was just holding him up in the air to mimic the sensation. Albert turned back to Eddie and asked, “Have you ever thought about bringing another child into the picture?”Eddie shook his head and chuckled. “Oh no. That hasn’t even crossed my mind. I mean, it’s been hard enough raising Chris without his mother. I’m sure he would love having a sibling, but I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready to take that kind of responsibility on again, especially not alone.”“Well, you wouldn’t be alone exactly.” Albert cocked his head to the side in confusion and gestured toward Buck and his son again. “You’d have Buck.”Or, Albert thinks Eddie and Buck are together and it forces Eddie to get some perspective.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 768





	Perspective

**Author's Note:**

> I busted this out in a couple hours and have not exactly proof-read this, so I'm running on hope that I didn't miss anything big. I just had to get this idea out there! I couldn't let go of the image of Albert just totally misinterpreting the situation but being oh so correct about it in the end

“Eddie! You made it!” Hen’s voice boomed across the park as she saw him coming down the path from the parking lot. Her smile beamed from behind the picnic table, arms full of a giggling baby girl. 

It was a gorgeous spring day, and since Hen and Karen had decided they’d had enough family bonding time with their new foster daughter that it was time to introduce her to everyone, the 118 and all their families were having a picnic to celebrate. 

Eddie waved with the hand not carrying a cooler and surveyed the area to see if anyone else was straggling in like he was. He’d known he’d probably be the last one there, what with his Abuela’s last minute request for help with a leaking sink, but he was surprised to see that Bobby and Michael both hadn’t arrived yet.

Maddie, Chimney, and Athena were all sitting at the picnic table with Hen and Karen, while Albert was off to the side with May and Harry, seemingly deep in some kind of story they were listening raptly to, and Buck was over on some playground equipment with Christopher and Denny, simultaneously supervising and playing just as enthusiastically as either of the younger boys. 

Eddie set his cooler down next to the table and sat down across from Karen after pulling out a bottle of water. He couldn’t help the giant grin that spread across his face once he saw the complete adoration in Hen and Karen’s eyes. “Hi there, pequeño. You must be Ms. Nia. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

The chubby little girl in Hen’s arms giggled and clapped her hands together, looking at Eddie with amusement. 

“I think that’s baby for ‘nice to meet you too Uncle Eddie’,” Karen said, smiling wide and reaching out to tickle Nia’s belly, getting another rousing giggle out of her.

“She’s completely adorable, guys. I know I’ve said it before, but I’m so happy for you two.”

Athena leaned on her elbows and gazed longingly at Nia. “Goodness, do I miss when mine were this little.” She reached out a hand and tickled Nia’s foot slightly. “Almost makes me want another.”

As if on cue, Harry came running over, May and Albert trailing behind at a more leisurely pace. “Mom! Albert was telling us stories about Korea and it sounds so awesome there! We should totally go some time. Ooh, we could go for our next family vacation!”

Athena chuckled and muttered, “Keyword; _almost_ ,” under her breath as she turned to explain to her son why that might not happen anytime in the near future. 

The suggestion was made to start pulling out and setting up all the food, as Bobby and Michael would probably be coming any time now, and a second picnic table nearby was commandeered as the food table. Hen attempted to help grab something, and shifted Nia in her arms before sighing and turning to Maddie. 

“Here, you’ve looked like you wanted to hold her since you got here. Auntie Maddie can keep watch while we set everything up.” 

Maddie gladly took hold of Nia and started fawning attention all over the little girl. Chimney was helping unload bags of chips and other snacks, but very obviously kept glancing back to them with a certain kind of longing in his eyes. Eddie, arms full with a crockpot someone brought, nudged Albert with his elbow at one point and nodded over at his brother’s love-struck face.

“You might want to prepare yourself for becoming an uncle here soon if that’s anything to go off of.”

He laughed and nodded along. “I was thinking the same thing. It would bring me no greater joy than to see them with a baby of their own. They really are quite a wonderful couple.”

“That’s an understatement,” Eddie agreed, looking back at them fondly after he situated the crockpot on the table.

“As are you and Buck. He is amazing with Chris, and it’s clear to see that he thinks of him as his own.”

Eddie nodded, smiling sheepishly, and not quite catching Albert’s implication at first. “He loves that boy like no other. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve someone like that in my life. In _our_ lives.”

Albert and Eddie both looked across the park then, where Buck was still playing with Chris and Denny, and Eddie’s heart warmed as he saw him “help” Chris across the monkey-bars, even though they all knew he was just holding him up in the air to mimic the sensation. Albert turned back to Eddie and asked, “Have you ever thought about bringing another child into the picture?”

Eddie shook his head and chuckled. “Oh no. That hasn’t even crossed my mind. I mean, it’s been hard enough raising Chris without his mother. I’m sure he would love having a sibling, but I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready to take that kind of responsibility on again, especially not alone.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be alone exactly.” Albert cocked his head to the side in confusion and gestured toward Buck and his son again. “You’d have Buck.”

“I couldn’t put that kind of burden on him. Sure, he’s fantastic with Chris, but I can’t just expect him to help with raising another child because of that.” Eddie noticed that Albert seemed to be getting more and more confused as the conversation went on, and as a result, he began to get very confused as well. “If I decide I want to have another child, it’s got to be because I’m ready to do it myself.”

“Is that not part of the expectations of being involved with someone? Or are you and Buck simply not as committed as I assumed?”

Eddie’s confusion cracked wide open and pure shock lay beneath. 

“Uh,” Eddie started, then sighed heavily, dragging a hand across his face and laughing suddenly. “Buck and I aren’t...involved.” He started laughing even harder, to the point where others were starting to take notice. “Oh man, oh no Albert. I’m sorry for laughing, I just can’t believe we had this whole conversation and I didn’t realize that’s what you were talking about. No, Buck and I are just friends.”

Albert looked like he didn’t believe what Eddie was telling him. “But you’re always near each other. You are at each other’s homes often enough that you have each other’s belongings there. The way he is with Chris...he even brought Chris today!”

“Because he was at my house this afternoon when my Abuela called and he said he would take him so I could go help her,” Eddie said, as if that proved Albert wrong.

“You know that doesn’t exactly help your case, my man,” Chimney said, coming up behind him and placing a hand on his shoulder. He leaned around him to look at his brother and said, “One thing you’ll learn is to not question the very obvious elephant in the room that is whatever the hell Eddie and Buck have going on.”

Eddie turned on Chimney at that. “What does that mean?”

Chimney put his hands in the air as if surrendering and walked back toward Maddie and baby Nia. 

“What that means,” started a deep voice from Eddie’s other side. He startled a little at Bobby’s voice coming out of nowhere, but turned toward it nonetheless as the Captain came striding toward the group, Michael behind him. “Is that you and Buck have been dancing around each other for, well, quite frankly, a long ass time now, and we all decided to just not mention it. But judging by the look on your face, it was mentioned. And now you’re going to dwell on it until you have a conversation with Buck about how head over heels you both are for each other. So I think I’ll go get Denny and Chris and tell them one of my wilder work stories while you and Buck have a much anticipated, long awaited conversation.”

\- - - 

“Bucky, when are you going to move in with me and Daddy?” Christopher asked as he caught his breath from laughing at Buck falling on his butt in the sawdust a few minutes before. “I thought you said that was going to happen after you started dating.”

Buck laughed and shook his head. “No, Superman, I said that probably wouldn’t happen unless your dad and I started dating.”

“But you are dating, aren’t you?” Denny asked, from his spot on the swingset a few feet away. 

“Yeah,” Chris nodded. “You’re dating now, right?”

“Not yet, little man. I don’t know if your dad wants that.”

“Of course he does!” Chris declared. His small hand reached out to pat Buck’s face as he said, “When you come over, or when we come to your apartment, he gets happy when he sees you. Then when we leave or you leave, he gets a little less happy. His face only does that when he thinks I’m not looking, but I see it. It only happens with you. You make Daddy happy. I see it right now.”

“Huh?” Buck followed the path of Christopher’s gaze and turned his head to see Bobby and Eddie walking their way. He supposed Eddie did look happy, although maybe fond would be a better description of the look on his face as he approached. 

Chris ambled to his feet and crashed into his dad’s legs as he got close. “Hey Daddy!”

“Hey mijo, Abuela said to tell you hi and to give you one of her big kisses, what’d’you think?” Eddie puckered his lips cartoonishly and bent to dramatically kiss all over Chris’ smiling face. The boy giggled and squirmed under the attention and hit his dad in the arm lightly as he pulled away. “Why don’t you and Denny go with Bobby here and finish helping everyone set up. I think we’re going to eat soon, but Buck and I need to talk for a minute.”

Buck stood up and handed Christopher’s crutches back to the boy as Denny jumped off the swingset. Chris threaded his arms through the loops and looked up at his dad again. “I think you need to kiss Buck too. He fell, so you should kiss it better.”

Buck would never do anything to hurt Christopher, but in that moment, he wanted to throttle the little meddler. Chris turned back to Buck and winked - or rather, he blinked slowly - before following Denny and Bobby back to the rest of the group. Buck could not believe Chris just did that. He didn’t think he had it in him to be so subtle and yet drive home a point so hard Buck wanted to scream. That little trickster. 

With Eddie standing in front of him, and Chris’ words fresh on his mind, Buck did everything he could for his face not to turn beet red. 

Eddie chuckled slightly and kicked the sawdust under his feet. He titled his head at Buck and opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but nothing came out. 

“So…” Buck started instead, shoving his hands in his pockets for lack of anything better to do with them. 

“Uh, yeah…” was all Eddie said.

“You wanted to talk about something?”

“Albert asked if we had thought about bringing another child into our family,” Eddie blurted, eyes scrunching up afterward, like that wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. 

Buck laughed nervously, trying to cover up the deep seeded feelings of want he had flowing through him at the thought. “That’d be a bit hard if we don’t live together.” And that was not what Buck wanted to say either. “Chris asked when I was moving in. He and Denny both thought we were dating and that I should move in because we are apparently dating, so I had to explain to them that we aren't actually dating.” And damn, how many times could he say the word ‘dating’ in one sentence?

“Huh, yeah, that’d probably be a good step to take if we were going to raise another kid together, which is what Albert thought was already happening and suggested we should do.”

“Maddie mentioned something to me last week about how we might as well be dating with how in each other’s pockets we are - her words, not mine. I thought she was joking, but I don’t know now.”

“Chim said there’s an elephant in the room surrounding us and Cap said that we’ve been dancing around each other but they’ve all chosen to ignore it until now.”

Buck laughed, whole heartedly and from the chest, completely in awe of the situation. He had been sitting on these feelings of his for his best friend for so long, and thought he was doing a good enough job of keeping them out of sight from anyone else. But there they were, telling each other back and forth stories of just how bad they have been at A) hiding their feelings, and B) recognizing each other’s feelings. 

Buck took a step closer to Eddie and laid a hand on his wrist. “I don’t know about you, but I think we should kick out the elephant and start dancing with each other instead.”

Eddie’s smile grew into the kinds of full face anomalies that Buck only got to see on rare occasions, his cheeks squished upward and his eyes gleaming with happiness. He grabbed Buck’s hands and laced their fingers. “Chris said you fell. Do you still need me to kiss it better?”

“Oh yes,” Buck smirked. “I fell for you, Edmundo Diaz, and the only thing that’ll make it better is a kiss.”


End file.
